ControlLogix/Ignition Installation for Greenfield Facility
We approach our work from a Whole Facility Design Perspective, resulting in elegant, efficient engineering solutions that are practical and reliable, maximizing your long term benefit from your facility.
Challenge
A confidential semiconductor client in the Southwest U.S. required a large-scale life safety monitoring system for a new 350,000 sq. ft. cleanroom manufacturing facility. The system needed to continuously monitor for toxic gas leaks across the entire site, requiring extremely high reliability and fast response times.
Because this system supports life safety functions, there was zero tolerance for errors. The architecture also needed to support rapid response times, efficient deployment of code, and long-term scalability, allowing the system to potentially triple in size within five years as the facility expanded.
Solution
Hallam-ICS designed and implemented a ControlLogix PLC and Ignition SCADA-based system to monitor and manage life safety conditions throughout the facility.
The system architecture included:
- 10 redundant pairs of Rockwell ControlLogix PLCs
- 46 remote I/O panels distributed across the facility
- 5 redundant Ignition SCADA servers
- Approximately 12,000 I/O points to monitor sensors and system conditions
Confidential Client Soutwest US…
Ignition SCADA was selected for its scalable architecture, allowing multiple SCADA instances to handle specific tasks while maintaining seamless communication between systems. The design included three dedicated data servers for PLC communication and historical data collection, a front-end server to host client sessions and queries, and an Enterprise Administration Module (EAM) server for centralized monitoring and project management.
To improve development speed and maintain system reliability, the programming strategy used user-defined types (UDTs), reusable code templates, and add-on instructions (AOIs). The PLC architecture was developed according to Rockwell best practices for redundant controllers, ensuring appropriate memory utilization, task management, and system integrity over time.
Results
Our team accomplished the following:
- Delivered a highly reliable life safety monitoring system for a 350,000 sq. ft. semiconductor manufacturing cleanroom.
- Implemented a redundant ControlLogix PLC and Ignition SCADA architecture to ensure continuous monitoring and fault tolerance.
- Designed the SCADA system to support approximately 1.2 million tags and 450 screens for comprehensive facility monitoring.
- Improved development efficiency and system maintainability through UDTs, reusable code templates, and AOIs.
- Created a scalable system architecture capable of expanding up to three times its current size to support future facility growth.